Feature Description

Once #656 is complete, the intention was that new modules would be initially released as standalone plugins, and not bundled with the main Performance Lab plugin. This creates a situation where new plugin modules can not easily be tested or used prior to them being available on the plugin repo. Given the current long wait times for new plugins to be approved on the repo, this would create a significant problem for efficiently developing and testing out new features and no clear way of testing the feature prior to an initial release.

Currently, a new module can be activated from the Performance Lab settings screen before it has been removed as a standalone plugin, so a new module can be tested by checking out a feature branch of this repo that includes the new module and activating it in the settings screen.

Initial ideas to consider

As originally discussed in #904 (comment), there are a few ways to address this issue:

1. Allow new modules to initially be included as experimental features that can be activated in the Performance Lab plugin prior to being released as a standalone plugin. This would require maintaining the migration logic developed in Overview: Creating standalone plugins #656 in the plugin indefinitely, as it will be needed as new plugins are released.
2. Update the release process for this repo so that we can publish zip files of standalone modules here, before they are available on the plugin repo. This is probably worth looking into regardless, so we can test pre-release zips prior to publishing a new release of a standalone plugin. However, this is still less convenient than being able to test updates from a single repo.

Currently effected modules in development

• Add Web Worker Offloading module #556
• Module Proposal: Alternative LCP Optimization (via Output Buffering) #805
• Add oEmbed optimizer module #886
• Module Proposal: Speculation prerendering & prefetching with the Speculation Rules API #897
• Add: Auto Sizes for Lazy-loaded Images #904